NRIs Corner

A key White House staffer who was fired after it came to light that he was behind a Twitter account that dished out gossip and pointed barbs at the Obama Administration is an Indian-American.

Jofi Joseph, 40, who was part of the National Security Council’s nuclear nonproliferation team, was just six months old when his Indian parents moved from Germany to the US.

A bright student, Joseph won several prestigious awards during his school and college days at Muskegon city in Michigan, including the National Citizen Bee.

A few innovative Indian hospitals could show the United States healthcare how to outgrow the challenges of reducing costs while improving quality of care and access for patients, researchers claimed.

Professor of international business at Tuck School of Business, Vijay Govindarajan, and his co-author Ravi Ramamurti, who is a professor at Northeastern University have taken out an article in the current issue of Harvard Business Review.

An Indian woman in Dubai was allegedly stabbed to death by her husband outside a school.

Sonia, who hailed from the south Indian state of Kerala, was stabbed just outside the gate of the New Indian Model School (NIMS) in Al Garhoud area of the city between 10.15 a.m. and 11a.m. Thursday, yards from where pupils were taking lessons, local media reported Friday.

The victim worked in the school as an attendant.

Her husband Ranjit reportedly stabbed his wife first and then tried to commit suicide by stabbing himself. He was taken to a hospital for treatment.

An eminent Indian-American Hindu religious leader from New Jersey has been honoured with the title of ‘Dharmatma’ by Sringeri Shankaracharya, making him only the third person in more than 1200 years of Sringeri Peetham’s history to receive this honour.

S Yegnasubramanian was honoured by the Sringeri Shankaracharya Bharati Teerthananda Mahaswami earlier this month, a media release said. Yegnasubramanian is the chairman of Hindu American Temple and Cultural Centre and Sringeri Vidya Bharati Foundation in New Jersey.

Four Indian-Americans have been indicted on charges of fraud of over USD 10 million while selling 26 gas stations spread across the US states of Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska and Wisconsin.

The 23-count indictment by a federal grand jury was unsealed yesterday at a Chicago court after the arrest of 34-year-old Charanpal Ghuman. The other three indicted are Aga Khan, Akash Brahmbhatt and Shital Mehta.

Ghuman and Khan co-owned the gas stations and sold them to purchasers financed by bank loans and guaranteed in part by the Small Business Administration.

An Indian doctor has been sentenced to over two years in prison for submitting false medical insurance claims for services that he had not provided.

Amar Nath Bhandary, 53, from Oklahoma was sentenced to 30 months in prison, followed by three years supervised release and a USD 20,000 fine, US Attorney for the Western District of Oklahoma Sanford Coats said in a statement.

Bhandary has also been ordered to pay restitution to Medicare and forfeit some property.

Suresh Chainrai Basantani, an Indian and a grandfather living in the United Arab Emirates for 40 years, has won 50,000 dirhams (around $13,600) in the third First Gulf Bank’s ChildFirst savings account prize draws.

Basantani enrolled in ChildFirst last year, aiming to ensure a bright future for his grandson.

The award is the first ever prize that Basantani has won during his stay in the UAE.

Huda Abdulla, executive vice-president of branch distribution in First Gulf Bank, presented the award to the winner after the results of the draw were announced.

Police in the Philippines have launched an operation to search for a 57-year-old Indian businessman who was abducted by armed men Oct 28.

Mike Khemani, owner of the Sugni Superstore in Cotabato city on Mindanao island, was kidnapped by five armed men Tuesday night. In the abduction bid, they killed one of Khemani’s bodyguards and left another injured, the Philippine Star reported Thursday.

Police said they now have a clue to the ownership of the abandoned car that the kidnappers used in forcibly carrying Khemani away.

Washington-based Sikh Human Development Foundation (SHDF) has given scholarships totalling over $200,000 to 508 needy students pursuing higher education in 159 institutions in Punjab and other states in north India.

The scholarships this year covered several fields such as medicine, engineering, agriculture, nursing, information technology, and business administration, according to a media release.

The Indian American Kerala Cultural and Civic Centre will honour eight Indian American Malayalees for their outstanding achievements in their field of specialisation or for their service to the society.

They will be honoured at Kerala Centre’s annual banquet Nov 9 at Leonards of Great Neck in Long Island, New York.

Chief guest Vijay K. Nambiar, under-secretary general and special adviser of the UN secretary-general on Myanmar, will also be honoured for his service to the UN.

An impoverished family trying to get back the body of their relative, a male sailor from Dubai where he had died on October 6 got relief with Madras High Court today directing Overseas Indian Affairs Ministry to expedite the process to send the body back to Tamil Nadu.

Justice K K Sasidharan gave the direction after perusing the status report filed by the ministry in this regard, as directed by the court on October 24.

A 40-year-old Indian woman has been taken into police custody in Oman following her husband’s unnatural death Oct 25.

The teacher in an Indian school in Sur and a mother of two girls studying in the same school was taken away for questioning over her 49-year-old husband’s death, the Times Of Oman reported Monday.

The teacher reportedly stabbed her husband following a brawl. The man was scuffling with his wife in a drunken state.

A Bahraini court has sentenced a 32-year-old Indian man to three years in jail for forging credit cards.

The High Criminal Court in Bahrain Monday convicted the Indian national of forgery and theft for using forged credit cards, the Gulf Daily News reported Tuesday.

However, the defendant said he had been framed by his employer.

He claimed he was assaulted, tied up and held captive for a month by his employers after he was caught stealing.

Astronomers, including an Indian-American, have discovered the most distant spectroscopically confirmed galaxy ever found – one created within 700 million years after the Big Bang.

“It’s exciting to know we’re the first people in the world to see this,” said Vithal Tilvi, a post-doctoral research associate at Texas A&M, a research-intensive flagship university, and co-author of the paper published in the latest edition of the journal Nature.

“It raises interesting questions about the origins and the evolution of the universe,” said Tilvi, born in Goa, India.

A 24-year-old unemployed man in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was charged in a Dubai court with assaulting a mentally-challenged Indian boy and his father.

The attack with a cleaver led to permanent disability of the Indian man, a court in Dubai was told, the Khaleej Times reported Monday.

The Indian, a 38-year-old salesman, in his complaint to police said that his mentally challenged son, who has no perception of his actions, entered a neighbour’s house.

Louisiana’s Indian American Governor Bobby Jindal, an emerging Republican party star, believes it’s still way too early to announce whether or not he’s running for president in 2016.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do in 2016,” Jindal, the head of the Republican Governors Association and a former

member of the US House of Representatives, told Fox News Sunday. Jindal said he wants to focus on “winning the war of ideas” before making a definitive decision on his presidential ambitions. “As Republicans, we have a lot of races we have to win before then,” he said.

An Indian national was killed and three others were injured in a road accident in Oman.

The man, Arun Kumar, 28, hailed from the south Indian state of Kerala. Three others who were injured in the accident were identified as Ajeesh, Rajeeb and Moosa.

The accident occurred when the driver of the car they were travelling in lost control and crashed into a post near Salalah Sunday, the Times Of Oman reported Monday.

Arun reportedly arrived in Oman last month only just after his marriage.

The Guildford Police in the UK has apologized after they were branded ‘racist’ for sending a tweet saying ‘Officers 1 Immigrants 0’.

The message was sent by an officer at Guildford Police via the Surrey force’s official Twitter account during an operation against illegal immigrants.

According to Sky News, the tweet was accompanied by the hashtag ‘We Will Catch Up With You’ and followed the arrests of eight people at a mobile carwash in Sainsbury’s in Burpham.

The Obama administration has turned to a technology company run by Indian-Americans to fix the problem ridden website for Americans to buy insurance under President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law.

Columbia, Maryland, based Quality Software Services Inc, or QSSI, will now serve as a general contractor to oversee repairs to Healthcare.gov launched Oct 1 under the 2010 law nicknamed “Obamacare,” said a management consultant hired by the White House to fix it.

Hindus living in the Australian city of Melbourne reportedly gathered at the Federation Square to celebrate the festival of lights, Diwali with gaiety.

Despite the temperatures going somber, the women were dressed in colourful saris and traditional song and dance were performed by children and adults.

The Indian equivalent of Christmas, Diwali is believed to be a symbol of prosperity, bring happiness the house and where good reigns over evil and darkness, The Age reports.

Just a month after beauty queen Nina Davuluri made history by becoming the first Indian-American Miss America, 18-year-old Emily Shah has won the Miss New Jersey USA 2014 title.

Shah, a resident of Edison, home to a large Indian-American community, was crowned Sunday at a glittering ceremony at the Hilton Parsippani Hotel in Parsippani, a small hill township in the state, according to local allvoices.com.

She will represent New Jersey at the Miss USA Pageant in 2014. The winner of the Miss USA Pageant will represent the United States in the 2014 Miss Universe competition.

Thanks to the initiative of bipartisan Congressional Caucus on India and Indian-Americans, US lawmakers are set to have their first-ever Diwali reception to celebrate the Indian festival of lights.

An invitation to lawmakers for the reception next Tuesday has gone out from old India friend and Democratic caucus co-chairman Joseph Crowley, according to the gossip blog of Roll Call, an influential publication focusing on Congressional affairs.

Foreign students mostly Indians will get discounted public transport from 2015 in Australia.

The Victorian government’s new scheme may disappoint some students because the discounts will be available only on annual, full-fare Myki passes.

According to the Age, final details of the three-year trial will be available next year. Students will be able to use the tickets on trains, trams and buses.

The government has confirmed the scheme will be available to students whose institutes have opted in to the programme.

Security personnel threw out two Pakistani expatriates from Dubai International Cricket Stadium today for allegedly hurling abuse at the Pakistan cricketers during the second test.

The third day’s play between Pakistan and South Africa was stopped for nearly five minutes before lunch as Pakistan
captain Misbah-ul-Haq complained to on-field umpires Rod

Tucker and Ian Gould about the misbehavior of the spectators. Tucker and Gould talked with match referee David
Boon.

Soon after, two security officials removed Siddique Amin and Mushtaq Amin from the stands.

A 78-year-old British Sikh woman died after being hit by a speeding police motorcycle here, officials said today.

After a week-long inquest into Harbhajan Kaur’s death, police found that nobody was to blame and described her as a victim of a “tragic accident”.

However, Kaur’s family asked for a fresh investigation into the role of the London police officer, who was seriously injured in the collision.